back to article Nude swimmers warned of GONAD-GOBBLING FISH ON THE LOOSE

Swedish men have been told to stay out of the water after a gonad-gobbling fish known as the "ball cutter" was spotted in the wild. The warning was issued after fisherman caught what appears to be a 21cm-long pacu fish in the Oresund Sound between Denmark and Sweden. Related to the famous Amazonian piranha, the pacu is famous …

COMMENTS

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  1. MacroRodent

    Fishy

    This news smells fishy! The pacu is a freshwater fish. The Oresund Sound is salty sea. Not as salty as the Atlantic next door, but more salty that the brackish Baltic on the other side (many freshwater fish live in the almost-freshwater northern parts of the Baltic, but going south the salt goes up and the population gets more marine). It is also much, much colder than Orinoco or the Amazon.

    I think this is a prime example of what we in Finland call a "mätäkuun juttu", a "rotten month's story". It is also the right time of the year for it, the humid tail end of Summer when things start rotting.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Fishy

      Hei! Here in the UK it's called the "Silly Season". Think I prefer the Finnish version, although wouldn't "mätäkuun kalaa juttu" be more appropriate in this case?

      1. MacroRodent

        Re: Fishy

        > wouldn't "mätäkuun kalaa juttu" be more appropriate in this case?

        That would be spelled "mätäkuun kalajuttu". OK, but a bit redundant, "kalajuttu" already implies it is probably an inaccurate story...

    2. David Glasgow

      Re: Fishy

      mätäkuun juttu

      That has too many accents and 'u's to be a thing in any language on earth.

      1. MacroRodent

        Re: Fishy

        > That has too many accents and 'u's to be a thing in any language on earth.

        The "ä" is not considered an accented letter Finnish, just a common vowel (similar to how you say "a" in "hat") that even has its own place in the alphabet near the end. As to the the row of "u":s, Finnish spelling indicates long vowels by doubling them. Simple and intuitive.

        1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

          Re: Fishy

          The Finns are merely compensating for the lack of vowels in Welsh.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Fishy

            "The Finns are merely compensating for the lack of vowels in Welsh."

            a, e, i, o, u, w, y - two more than English

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Fishy

          Finnish vowels in written text make it clear whether they are back vowels or front vowels. As MacroRodent says, "ä" is a front vowel pronounced like the "a" in the English word "cat", whereas "a" is a back vowel and pronounced like the "a" in the English word "car". English doesn't really make the distinction, since it rarely changes the meaning of a word and can differ in regional accents (for instance "bath", pronounced like "barth" in some places, and like "baff" in others. In Finnish, words with different meanings can differ only in whether they contain back or front vowels.

          And to the poster who thinks long vowels with look scary in Finnish, you should try Lapp which has long vowels with three of the same vowel in succession!

  2. Paul J Turner
    Headmaster

    If he's an expert...

    He should know that the plural of testicle is testes. I'm getting tired of seeing this laziness everywhere lately.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If he's an expert...

      Yes, he should get the sack.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: If he's an expert...

        He totally ballsed that up.

        1. wowfood

          Re: If he's an expert...

          Honestly this seems like a load of bollucks if you ask me. With summer coming to an end we're balls deep in joke and shock stories, it's absolutely nuts.

        2. Andrew Newstead

          Re: If he's an expert...

          he's testiculating...

    2. Don Jefe

      Re: If he's an expert...

      Isn't testes only correct when referring to those owned by one person and testicles refers to those owned by more than one person?

      - He lost his testes in a bizarre refrigerator accident.

      - Many testicles are lost annually to kitchen appliance malfunctions.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Many testicles are lost annually to kitchen appliance malfunctions

        What? what are you doing with the toaster/kettle/washer/food processor ????

        1. CaptainHook

          Re: Many testicles are lost annually to kitchen appliance malfunctions

          What? what are you doing with the toaster/kettle/washer/food processor ????

          *****

          Real Men don't use shop brought gadgets for their "Will It Blend" experiements.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Many testicles are lost annually to kitchen appliance malfunctions

          > What? what are you doing with the toaster/kettle/washer/food processor ????

          Listen, last time I checked this was a free country, Ok? I reassure you that no appliances are harmed.

        3. zb

          Re: Many testicles are lost annually to kitchen appliance malfunctions

          Well the fire brigade is used to dealing with a penis stuck in a toaster

          http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/30/penis-toaster-message-fire-brigade-fiftyshadesofred

    3. Gray Ham Bronze badge
      Facepalm

      Re: If he's an expert...

      Er, no ....

      Testis, plural = testes

      Testicle, plural = testicles.

      Not that you'd worry about these niceties if you're having your balls chewed off by a piranha.

      1. Thomas 4

        Re: If he's an expert...

        All this grammar discussion is annoying me. It's making me testy.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: If he's an expert...

          >It's making me testy.

          It's tetchy

      2. Tom 7

        Re: If he's an expert...

        This is an IT rag so its unit testicles.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: If he's an expert...

      You're whingeing on about orthography when every normal man is sitting tightly crossed-leg thinking, "Mmm, that sounds slightly uncomfortable" especially if they'd seen the episode of River Monsters dedicated to the pacu.

    5. Flawless101
      Happy

      Re: If he's an expert...

      What the hell are you possibly reading that leads you to see testes vs. testecles everywhere? Do we even want to know?

    6. Tom 11
      Coat

      Re: If he's an expert...

      Yeah, he totally dropped the ball with that gaffe.

    7. Swarthy

      Re: If he's an expert...

      @ Paul J Turner:

      Are you feeling a bit testy today?

  3. jake Silver badge

    ::Crnl Potter::

    Horse hockey.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Fake Story

    The giveaway? Swedish men don't have testicles.

    1. Intractable Potsherd

      Re: Fake Story

      Ummmm ... what?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    I call dibs on the Swedish chainmail speedo concession!!

    Attached icon is actually an illustration showing proper procedure for adornment.

    (Also agree with the above about the Pacu being a warm fresh-water fish. But maybe Putin's KGB is missing a couple Franken-Pacu bred to stop Russian gays from skinny-dipping?)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I call dibs on the Swedish chainmail speedo concession!!

      Doubt it was the Ruskies. No mention of it being fitted with a LAZER.

      In Россия all your testes are belong to us.

    2. Armando 123

      Re: I call dibs on the Swedish chainmail speedo concession!!

      New from IKEA! Unfortunately, it takes 35 minutes to put it on and it never really fits right.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        IT Angle

        Re: I call dibs on the Swedish chainmail speedo concession!!

        If it's from Ikea, you need to put an old phone book under one gonad......

    3. Grikath
      Trollface

      Re: I call dibs on the Swedish chainmail speedo concession!!

      You can have your dibs...

      Chainmail is flexible.....

  6. xyz Silver badge

    Sounds like my ex girlfriend is on the loose again

    She has form for this sort of thing.

    1. LarsG

      Re: Sounds like my ex girlfriend is on the loose again

      If you'd have been nicer to her she probably wouldn't have bitten!

  7. NorthernCoder
    IT Angle

    A few details:

    The fish was caught near Saltholm, on the Danish side. The Danish men should be equally afraid.

    Pacus are not uncommon as aquarium fish and has spread over the world as such.

    My guess is that someone in Copenhagen got tired of their fish tank and dumped the fish in a canal in the city, from where it swam to Öresund. If it had any friends, they'll freeze to death in the winter.

    Oh, and Where's the IT angle? (I can see the bITe angle, though.)

    1. hplasm
      Coat

      Re: A few details:

      The IT angle, is in the dangle...

      1. bob's hamster

        Re: A few details:

        "The IT angle, is in the dangle..."

        Isn't that directly proportional to the throb of the knob.

        1. James Micallef Silver badge
          Thumb Up

          Re: A few details:

          also directly proportional to the heat of the meat

          provided the mass of the arse is kept constant

      2. Graham Dawson Silver badge

        Re: A few details:

        You mean the dongle, surely?

      3. ian 22

        Re: A few details:

        Angle of the dangle = Heat of the meat + Mass of the ass.

    2. LazyLazyman

      Re: A few details:

      Rather than tired, more likely it grew too big. People buy them as 3" fish in a 3' tank not realizing that they can grow bigger than the tank. They then need to get rid of them somehow and most zoos have too many of the things. Take a look at London zoos aquarium, it is full of monster fish, most of which come from people who could no longer look after them.

      Also, I would guess that the salinity and lack off food would get to it before the cold.

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Re: A few details:

        What about chip shops?

        Now that would get rid of them in a usefull way.

  8. FunkyEric
    Paris Hilton

    Playmobil - or it didn't happen

    Paris, because, well obviously

  9. Ketlan
    Devil

    Pffft...

    Sounds like a load of bollocks to me.

  10. Grikath

    Fish Tank Kings....

    Now we know what happens with the fish after the owners get tired of them...

  11. kazvorpal

    The Usual Government Stupidity

    The pacu is tropical. Obviously, someone dumped one in the water there, THIS SUMMER. The odds are that he didn't dump huge schools of them.

    More importantly, the pacu grows to be HUGE. Like eighty pounds. The one they're talking about is tiny (for a pacu). It could never bite off someone's gonads. It wouldn't dare even try.

    This is like the idiots in the US announcing that sun tea might be dangerous. It's bureaucratic hypercarefulness, causing more harm than good.

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Someone needs to tell the Pacu that when you teabag someone the rule is *no biting*.

  13. Vociferous

    Everyone, meet Publicity Stunt; Publicity Stunt, this is everyone.

    It's August. News drought season always brings silly animal sightings, and in this particular case a quick googling suggest that the fisherman seems to be the nephew of the owner of a public aquarium.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    jokes about tea bagging come to mind

    apparently because mine has only one track.

  15. Stratman
    Pint

    Reports that feminazis have started a mass breeding programme for the fish have been denied

    Beer. To dull the pain.

    1. Shrimpling
      Pint

      You need quite a lot of beer to numb the pain of a missing testicle.... have another one!

  16. TRT Silver badge

    It's the circle of life...

    we've been eating their fingers for years.

  17. tony2heads

    SIZE of these things

    checkout the picture

    http://theagitatedangler.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/314137016_big-1.jpg

    1. Chris Glen-smith
      Thumb Down

      Re: SIZE of these things

      That pic is very fake. I'm not saying that the fish don't get to that size but that is a photoshop job.

  18. Wize

    Maybe its being circulated by the chain mail swimsuit company

    Isn't there another fish in those areas that will swim up a guy's stream of wee and lodge itself in their 'eye'?

    1. Stratman

      Re: Maybe its being circulated by the chain mail swimsuit company

      Could it be the candiru

  19. johnwerneken

    It's not a tropical freshwater fish in the cold Swedish seas

    It's a new species! The Obama Fish!

  20. Anomalous Cowshed

    They should have called it...

    ...the infamous ball cutter from Calcutta.

    Just because it rhymes.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    'Er name was 'Ardin,

    she gave me an '#rdon,

    and then there''s this ''ere fish,

    it made me wish,

    that the cray-fish

    I wished I''d passed on

  22. Nameless Faceless Computer User

    Pics or it didn't happen.

  23. Pirate Dave Silver badge
    Coffee/keyboard

    Quote of the year nominee:

    "It's not normal to get your testicles bitten off, of course, but it can happen, especially now in Sweden."

    I must be in a strange mood today, but that sentence struck me as insanely funny, almost as if it came straight from a Monty Python skit.

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